TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
* Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_, and small
caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS.
* Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected.
* Errata emendations have been inserted into their proper places in
the text.
* Some maps and illustrations have been moved so that they do not
break up paragraphs and lie near the text they illustrate.
THE TWO MAPS OF EUROPE
THE TWO MAPS OF
EUROPE
AND SOME OTHER ASPECTS
OF THE GREAT WAR
BY
HILAIRE BELLOC
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED
HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1915
_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. LTD.
_At the Ballantyne Press_
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE TWO MAPS OF EUROPE 9
NUMBERS IN WAR 31
SUPPLY 55
WAR TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 75
WHAT TO BELIEVE IN WAR NEWS 99
WHAT THE WAR HAS TAUGHT US 115
FOREWORD
The six chapters of this little book discuss and explain six separate
and most important phases of the present war. Every effort has been
made to deal with the headings selected as comprehensively and as
simply as possible, and it is hoped that, in this convenient form,
the handbook will be welcomed by those who wish to follow the
campaign with understanding. The various articles reprinted were
written during the winter of the present year (1914-15), and many of
the conclusions reached apply, therefore, to that period of the war
only.
ERRATA
_Page_ 38, _line_ 17, 400 _should read_ 500.
„ „ 5000 „ „ 4000.
_Page_ 42, Description of Map, _line_ 3, 400 _should read_ 500.
THE TWO MAPS OF EUROPE
_Wherein the map of Europe, as it will be if Germany wins, is clearly
defined and compared with the map of Europe re-arranged in accordance
with the ideals of the Allies._
THE TWO MAPS OF EUROPE
It is everywhere admitted that the result of the great war must be
either, upon the whole, to produce a new map of Europe upon the
German model, or a new map of Europe upon the model suitable to the
ideas of the Allies.
By this it is not meant that either ideal will be completely
reached, but that in the settlement one or the other will certainly
preponderate. Indeed, it is in the struggle between these two new
maps of Europe as ideals that the motive of the war consists.
Now, before attempting to determine in a graphic fashion what those
two ideals are--before, that is, trying to draw two maps which shall
represent respectively the German goal and the goal of the Allies, we
must lay down certain postulates which are not always recognized but
which are certainly true.
Unless we recognize their truth we shall come to accept wild
statements, and to be frightened of those ridiculous prophecies which
propose the extermination of Germany on the one hand, or the rule of
the German government over England or France on the other.
I. The first of these postulates is that a modern European nation no
longer desires to _annex_ white men in Europe, and the territory they
inhabit.
The example of Alsace-Lorraine alone has proved a sufficient
lesson; the continued vitality of Poland after a hundred years has
proved another, and even the difficulties of the Austro-Hungarian
governments, with their subject races, a third. This does not
mean that a modern European government would not annex in any
circumstance. The possession of some all-important military or
commercial point might occasionally make the perilous experiment
worth while. But it means that the idea of annexation as an obvious
corollary to military success has disappeared.
II. The second postulate is as follows: It is universally
recognized--by the Germans quite as much as by ourselves--that the
political boundaries so long established in Europe hardly ever
correspond to exact national groupings, and very often violently
conflict with the realities of national life.
No one is so foolish, for instance, as to pretend that the Finnish
provinces of Russia are not quite separate from the rest of the
Czar’s dominions in tradition, and consciousness, and habit, and
all the rest that makes a nation. No one in England now denies the
existence of an Irish nationality.
No one, to take an Eastern case, would pretend that the Serbian
feeling of nationality was not very real, and was very far from being
contained by the present boundaries of Serbia.
The excuse for the old point of view--the point of view that
political boundaries were sufficient and that the true nationalities
which they cut through or suppressed might be neglected--was that
in time, with the modern rapidity of communication and the power of
the modern State, these divergent elements would be _absorbed_, or
_digested into_, the greater nationality which governed them. But
experience has falsified this very reasonable conception. It has
been found not only that this transformation did not take place, but
even that the old real nationalities were actually getting stronger.
Poland, for instance, artificially cut through by the German,
Austrian, and Russian frontiers, did seem for a time as though it
were going to spring into a Russian, a German, and an Austrian
type of Polish men; and in the latter case, that of Austria, some
considerable advance was made towards such a result. But generations
passed, and the process did not continue; on the contrary, the tide
began to set backwards, and the conception of a united Poland is far
stronger to-day even in the small and successful Austrian portion of
Poland than it was thirty years ago.
In the face of these two postulates, the true national groupings
have discovered their power and have already begun to appear in real
form, as it were, through the artificial political boundaries which
divided or suppressed them. Any one, the Germans as much as the rest,
proposing to reconstruct Europe must most certainly take account of
such realities, and must deal with the many national groups of Europe
as the stones out of which the new building is to be erected.
But the particular way in which those stones may be used, the
combinations into which they may be grouped, the main influences
which are to impose themselves upon particular great agglomerations
of new nationalities are the whole issue of the debate, and form the
whole subject of this war.
The German Empire and its Ally, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy--that
is, the reigning house of Hapsburg-Lorraine--wants the re-arrangement
to take a certain form which would leave the German speech and
culture and tradition the predominating thing in Europe, and probably
in the whole world.
The Allies, upon the other hand, are fighting for a less simple idea.
They are fighting for the double conception of:
(_a_) Retaining the existing independence of certain
national groups.
(_b_) Erecting other independent or partly independent
groups, the existence of which and the general influence
of which shall restrict German and in particular Prussian
power.
This dual conception the Allies rightly term the preservation and the
extension of national liberties in Europe.
Now before we can comprehend either what the Germans are striving
for or what the Allies are striving for, we must make a catalogue
of those national groups which are at the foundation of the whole
business. In making that catalogue we must remember what it is that
creates a national group.
[Illustration: MAP I. THE MAIN TRUE NATIONAL FRONTIERS OF CONTINENTAL
EUROPE
(excluding the South, which is exterior to this war)
The Slavs Roman in Religion. True National Frontiers.
1, 2, 3, 4.--Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland.
National groupings have discovered their power and have already begun
to appear in real form through the artificial political boundaries
which divided or suppressed them. Anyone proposing to reconstruct
Europe must most certainly take account of such realities, and must
deal with the many national groups of Europe as the stones out of
which the new building is to be erected.]
What makes a nation is _corporate tradition_. The strongest element
in this is an historic memory. A nation which can point to having
enjoyed a national existence in the past is much more firmly seated
in its ambition to retain or to recover its independence than one
which has never had such historic existence.
Another element in this constitution of a nationality is language.
A common language is a much weaker element of nationality than
tradition, as we see in the case of Belgium, which is almost equally
divided between Latin-speaking and Teutonic-speaking people; and
in the case of Switzerland. But it is none the less a strong thing;
nowhere is it stronger than in the case of Poland. While, upon the
other hand, you have exactly the opposite in the case of Irish
national feeling; in the case of German-speaking Lorraine and Alsace;
and you might very well have had a similar case in Bohemia where
there is now a strong national feeling backed by a national Slav
language, though that language was artificially revived comparatively
recently.
Yet another factor is religion, and it is a most powerful one. It
creates, for instance, a gulf between the Catholic and the Orthodox
Slav, and it creates an awkward complexity in the problem of those
Slavs whose religious ritual is Greek, but who are yet in communion
with Rome.
It is impossible to attribute numerical value to each of these
various factors, or to say that language everywhere counts for so
much, religion for so much, etc. We have to take each particular
case and judge it as it stands. And if we do that with an impartial
judgment upon the real national feeling, we get some such list as the
following, for the Continent alone.
(1) The French, who within their own boundaries are perfectly united;
although certain districts (a little group in the Pyrenees and
another little group in Western Brittany and another in the extreme
north-east) speak a language of their own. To this French group
should be added the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine which were
annexed by the Germans in 1871. Alsace and Lorraine have enjoyed
great material prosperity under German rule; the metal industry of
the North has been immensely developed, and in a dozen other ways
the German administration has increased their wealth, and has added
to their population serious elements of German sympathy. But take the
provinces as a whole and there is no doubt that their re-union with
France is still the passionate desire of the great majority among
them.
(2) Belgium is again undoubtedly the example of a separate--though
less united--national group in whose individual feeling religion
plays a great part, but still more historic existence through nearly
a century as an independent State (during which century Belgium has
vastly increased its population and its wealth), and for much more
than a century the separate existence of the district as the Southern
Netherlands as distinct from Holland.
(3) Holland, in its turn, both on account of its long independent
existence, its strong national feeling and its peculiar experience
as a commercial seafaring power, makes a third individual group. The
populations immediately to the east of Holland in German territory
speak a language of the same sort as the Dutch, and have the same
social conditions and habits, but they have no desire to be Dutch,
nor the Dutch to be incorporated with them.
(4) The Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, form
an equally distinct unit, and are quite clearly divided into three
separate national groups. And here we have two anomalies: A quite
small belt of Denmark, much smaller than the total original extent
of Schleswig-Holstein, annexed by Prussia fifty years ago, is really
Danish, and maintains to this day its protest against the annexation.
One may go so far as to say that this really Danish belt is no more
than a tenth of the whole, but its protest is a proof of the vigour
which national feeling has maintained against artificial political
boundaries. On the other hand, the Finnish provinces of Russia are,
in their articulate spirit, their governing class, their religion,
and almost in their entire social life Swedish in tone. Norway is
intact, neither suffering a portion of her population under alien
rule nor pretending to govern populations alien to herself.
(5) The fifth great group is the German, and here there is so much
complexity that what we have to say must only be taken very generally
and roughly. But, roughly and generally, the German group is as
follows:
All German-speaking men and women with the exception of:
(_a_) The bulk of the annexed provinces of Alsace-Lorraine
(a matter of sentiment), and
(_b_) The German-speaking cantons of Switzerland (a matter
of political boundaries).
Now the boundaries of this “German feeling” group in Europe are
curiously involved and tortuous. Beginning at the Baltic, roughly at
the mouth of the River Niemen (which the Germans call the Memel),
the true frontier of the German type runs southward for a short
distance until it reaches what is called the Region of the Lakes,
where the Russian frontier begins to turn west. There the boundary
turns west also, and begins to run north again, nearly reaching the
Baltic Sea in the neighbourhood of Dantzig. It then turns south by
west, goes far west of Thorn and even of Posen, which are Polish
towns, and comes round not far east of Frankfort-on-Oder. Then it
goes south and east again, coming right through the middle of German
Silesia, but, on reaching the mountains that here bound Bohemia, it
curls round northwestward again, leaving the mountainous part of
the barrier of Bohemia all German, but excluding the Slavonic true
Bohemian people in the centre of that isolated region. The Upper
Valley of the Elbe is not German. Having thus gone all the way round
Bohemia proper, the boundaries of the German type run eastward
again, very nearly following the watershed of the Danube until they
strike the March River about thirty miles from Vienna. Vienna is
thus not a centre, but, like Berlin, an outpost of German speech and
civilization. From Vienna the true frontier of the German folk runs
south, more or less corresponding to the existing boundary between
Austria and Hungary, until it passes the point of Gratz--which counts
as German. Thence the boundary turns due west again, taking in the
greater part of the Tyrol, and so to the Swiss frontier and on to the
Rhine opposite Belfort. Thence it follows the Rhine to a point south
of Spiers, and after that follows the existing boundaries (excepting
Luxembourg), and is confined by the Dutch and Belgian frontier and
the North and Baltic Seas with the exception of the Danish belt north
of the Kiel Canal, which is mainly Danish.
Within that curiously twisted line nearly all speech and all
feeling is German. There are many States within that line, there
is much confusion of historic tradition, a sharp division in
religion--roughly Catholic in the south and west, Protestant in the
north and east. But the national group is, especially as against
the Slav and even as against western and southern Europe, one body;
and within that body Prussia, with its capital of Berlin, is the
organizing and directing centre.
Are there anomalies to be discovered with regard to this curiously
shaped body? There are; but they are of less importance than is
often imagined. Thus there are beyond Eastern Prussia and within the
Russian boundary the so-called “German” Baltic provinces of Russia.
But the term is a misnomer. The leaders of industry are largely
German, most of the towns, and the greater landed aristocracy for the
most part. But the mass of the population is not German-speaking, and
even of the German-speaking minority only a minority again are in any
sympathy with the united German feeling to the west.
There are colonies of German speech far eastward of Vienna under
the political dominion of Hungary; a particularly large one being
discoverable right up in the south-eastern Carpathians next to the
Roumanian border. But these colonies could never be included in any
united Germany. Nor could the considerable number of similar isolated
colonies of Germans in southern and western Russia. Finally, you
have on the extreme west the little province of Luxembourg, which is
German-speaking, which has its railways and most of its industries
controlled by Germans, but which would in any perfectly free system
certainly refuse incorporation with any new German unity, for it has
an historic tradition of independence which has proved very valuable
to it, and may be compared with that of the Swiss German-speaking
cantons.
(6) We next have to consider the Slavs, and these fall into two
groups, northern and southern, which two groups are thus separated
by the great Mongolian invasion of Eastern Europe in the Dark Ages.
There is further among the Slavs a cross-section of great importance,
that of religion. It separates the Slavs not into northern and
southern, but, roughly, into eastern or Greek church, and western or
Catholic. With the northern Slavs we count the Bohemians or Czechs,
the Poles, and the Russians--using the latter term, of course, for
many distinct but connected groups, for it is certain that Russia
proper must remain a unity.
There are also just north of the Carpathians two minor northern
Slavonic groups, the Slovacs and the Ruthenians. These northern Slavs
are divided into Catholic Slavs and Slavs of the Greek Church, or
Orthodox, by a vague belt of territory running, roughly, from the
town of Vilna down to the borders of the Bukovina; the Poles and
Czechs, etc., being in communion with Rome, while the Russians are of
the Greek Church.
The southern Slavs are again divided into Catholic and Orthodox by a
very sharp and bitter division. The Slovenes and the Croats stand for
the Catholic group, the Serbian nation, as a whole, for the Orthodox
group; a part of the Serbians and all the Slovenes and Croats are in
the Austro-Hungarian dominions, and it is the Serbian element which
is in rebellion. The rest of the Serbians are now independent. And so
complicated are population and religion in this region that nearly a
third of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Slav in race, are Mohammedan
in religion.
(7) Between these two great Slav groups, northern and southern,
struck in, during the Dark Ages, a wedge of invading Mongols whose
position has been of the greatest importance to the history of
Eastern Europe. They were converted to Christianity nearly a thousand
years ago, and the Mongol type has entirely disappeared, but the
Mongol language remains under the title of _Magyar_, and it is the
_Magyar_-speaking _Hungarians_ that are the ruling race over all the
eastern part of Austria-Hungary, though they are only half of the
total population in their dominion. In any new national grouping this
fiercely independent Magyar population must be taken for granted,
though its claim to rule alien subjects is another matter.
(8) Finally, there is a curious group of the greatest importance,
both because so much of its population is forbidden independence and
because the remainder has attained independence. That group is the
Roumanian group.
Racially, the Roumanians are probably Slavs for the most part, but
their tongue is a Latin tongue; they are proud of Latin descent,
and they are just as much a wedge between the Slavs of the north
and south as the Magyars themselves. They everywhere overlap their
nominal political boundaries; three million and a half of them extend
far into Hungary, and a portion over the boundaries of Russia. For
the most part they are Orthodox, or Greek, in religion. But it must
always be remembered, because it is essential to understanding the
new Europe, that the Roumanian-speaking people under Hungarian rule
are, quite half of them and perhaps the majority, cut off from the
Orthodox Church and in union with Rome.
With this summary, which has been expressed in Map I, you have a
fair, though of course rough, division of Europe into its real
national components.
Now let us ask what Germany and Austria would propose, in case of
their victory, to make out of such materials.
[Illustration: MAP II. THE GERMANIC GROUP IN EUROPE
1. Luxembourg
2. Belgium
3. Germany
4. Switzerland
5. Italy
6. Mixed Italian and German
7. Russia
8. Bohemia
9. Bosnia
10. Austrian
11. Holland
12. Bukovina
13. Hungary
14. Serbia
15. Roumania
16. Bulgaria
17. Montenegro
18. Albania
19. Greece
20. Turkey
The boundaries of the “German feeling” group in Europe are very
roughly suggested by the thick black line. Within that curiously
twisted line nearly all speech and all feeling is German.]
In the first place Germany would keep all that she has, indifferent
to national anomalies or the unquiet of subject and oppressed
peoples. She would keep Alsace-Lorraine; she would keep in subjection
the Poles who are already in subjection to her; she would leave the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy under the Hapsburgs with all its present
possessions, whether those possessions grossly interfered with
national realities or no. Would she annex territory, in spite of the
first of the two postulates which I have already mentioned?
The German constitutional system is of its nature federal. There is
room in it for many kinds of states, each possessed of a very great
measure of independence, and if the inclusion within one commercial
system and one military system also, however loose that inclusion, be
called annexation, then we may say that Germany would annex in some
degree. She would wish to control directly the Mouth of the Scheldt
and probably the Teutonic-speaking part of Belgium, that is, the
north of that country. She would certainly desire to administrate the
Ardennes, which would be her frontier against France, and she would
quite certainly take over Luxembourg.
As to Holland, her plan would probably be different there from that
pursued in any other case. She would leave it as independent in its
own eyes as it was before; she might insist upon an alliance with
the Dutch army, she would certainly insist upon commercial terms,
and probably rights of using certain ports in certain cases for war.
But nothing but inexcusable folly would tempt her to go further. The
position of Holland after a German settlement might not uncertainly
be compared to the position of Hamburg in the old days, on a larger
scale, a free State just as Hamburg was a free city.
This easy and, as it were, mutually arranged compromise with Holland,
coupled with dominion over the Scheldt and Antwerp, would give the
German peoples what they most desire, the whole littoral of the North
Sea. Further, possessing Antwerp, as they would certainly possess
it, they would have a commercial lever for keeping Holland in order.
They could direct all their trade at will towards Antwerp to the
starvation of Rotterdam.
The Scandinavian countries they would regard as naturally German
in feeling, and as falling in a vague and general way into their
orbit. Possessing the Kiel Canal, they would not strictly need the
Sound. But they would so dominate Denmark that they could make what
commercial or military terms they chose with regard to the passages
of the Baltic; and you would have German firms, German methods,
and to some extent the German language holding “civil garrisons”
throughout the useful part of Sweden and Norway.
On the East some have imagined they would erect as against Russia
a mutilated and dependent Polish State. It is more probable that
they would confine themselves to procuring some liberty for Russian
Poland, and obtaining some convention as to fortification and
commerce. Russia will always be formidable, and to maintain the
mutual bond of a subject Poland between Russia and herself would
serve in the future, as it has served in the past, the ends of
Prussia. It is essential to Prussia that no really independent Poland
should re-arise, even mutilated. It is even essential that there
should be no one area that the Poles could regard as the nucleus of a
really free Polish State.
In the Balkans the Germanic Powers would certainly demand the control
over what is now Serbia, and, at the risk of further war, the outlet
at Salonika. The remnant of the Turkish Empire in Europe they already
regard as being under their protectorate.
As to the West, they would, rightly, treat it merely as a defeated
foe. France (they would say) might continue to decline--for the
Germans, getting things out of Berlin, always talk of “the decay of
the Latin peoples”--her decline accelerated by stringent commercial
treaties and a heavy indemnity; England would be envisaged in the
same terms. Germany would demand from England certain coaling
stations; she would impose on England also certain commercial
conditions. But there would be no need to restrict the building of a
Fleet, for there a victorious Germany would feel easily able to look
after herself.
[Illustration: MAP III. EUROPE REMODELLED BY GERMANY AND AUSTRIA
Boundary of Germanic Allies to-day, with their dependent States.
Small districts which might be actually annexed: the Lower Scheldt,
Middle Meuse, Ardennes, Luxembourg, a corner of French Lorraine, a
few frontier districts of Russian Poland.
Countries which would be dependent upon the Germanic hegemony, being
of kindred blood and speech, and which would in special points admit
actual economic or political control by Germans.
Buffer Polish States, which Prussia might erect dependent on herself
and as a barrier against Russia.
Holland, a special case. Kindred in speech. Not actually annexed,
perhaps, but allowed only a quasi-independent position with German
control, veiled, in the two principal ports, and facilities for
German Navy. Also included in any economic policy.
Districts in no way kindred to Germanic peoples, but to be annexed,
or at any rate directly controlled in order to command the Balkans,
to dominate Constantinople, and to get a passage to the Ægean Sea.
District which German Empire might annex, both on account of its
German elements in population, and on account of controlling the
Baltic.]
One may sum up and say that Germany and Austria expect from victory a
Europe in which all that is German-speaking and already within their
moral influence shall support their power over the world, that power
not coming in the shape of annexations, save at one or two selected
points.
Once on the North Sea, and once having broken British maritime
supremacy, Central Europe would leave the future to do its work,
content in the East with dominating the Balkans and reaching the
Ægean Sea, and with permanently holding back the further advance of
Russia.
[Illustration: MAP IV. EUROPE REMODELLED BY THE ALLIES
1. To retain their present boundaries: Switzerland, Belgium,
Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, Sweden.
2. The Germanic Peoples: with the Catholic South leaning upon Vienna
and a large autonomy to individual States.
3. France: with Alsace-Lorraine.
4. Poland: Quasi-independent, but a holding of Russia.
5. Czechs: Quasi-independent, but probably still a holding of Vienna.
6. Ruthenians (a minor Slavonic group): either annexed to Russia, or
closely dependent on her.
7. An independent Magyar State.
8. An independent Catholic Southern Slav or Croat State, probably a
holding of Vienna.
9. An orthodox Southern Slav State, Serbia, with access to Adriatic,
but not holding Bulgarian territory.
10. Roumania, enlarged by her Transylvanian population.
11. Bulgaria.]
If this is the German programme, what is that of the Allies?
Primarily, it is the maintenance of not only liberties, but powers
already acquired. In the economic sphere it is, of course, the
maintenance of those international contracts upon which the wealth of
England and of France depends. It is the maintenance of English power
at sea, the re-establishment of a united France by land, the recovery
of Belgium, and the guaranteeing of Holland in her neutrality,
whether she wills it or no.
But over and beyond this there is the problem of reconstruction, and
here you have two clear principles:
(1) It is to the advantage of the Allies to recognize everywhere, as
much as possible, the realities of nationality.
(2) It is a matter of life and death to the Allies to prevent the
re-establishment of Prussian power, with its ideal of domination over
others.
To some extent these two policies agree, but not entirely. To erect
a larger Serbia, to free the Croats and the Slovenes, or perhaps
to take from their territory the ports necessary to Serbia on the
Adriatic, giving Serbia also the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
meanwhile, to let Bulgaria occupy the purely Bulgarian districts
which Serbia now has, to re-erect a united Poland, to give Roumania
her nationals beyond the Carpathians at the expense of Hungary;
to make Hungary as far as possible independent of Vienna in
administration, and in particular in military affairs--all that is
part of universal policy which everyone expects.
But what of Germany from within?
It is evident that the control of the Baltic, which the Kiel Canal
involves, means that the Kiel Canal should be neutralized. It is
equally evident that, while the Bohemians may not be wholly separated
from the Germanic body which nearly encloses them, the largest
measure of autonomy for these isolated Slavs fits the case of the
Allies. But as for the policy to be pursued for Germany herself in
case of a victory on the part of the Allies, that is a much more
complex matter.
Roughly, it would seem to depend upon two main principles: First,
that the more ancient and the more civilized pole of Germany, the
southern pole which is at Vienna, should be in every way favoured
at the expense of the northern pole, Berlin, to which we have owed
this catastrophe. Secondly, that an economic policy should be
imposed which shall leave industrial Germany free to produce and yet
compelled to pay.
A policy of that kind means, of course, a carefully framed tariff, so
designed that the tribute necessary to paying the cost of this great
adventure shall fall upon its authors.
Germany showed the way in 1871 upon what now looks like a modest
scale, but was then designed to be ruthless. It is our business to
copy that example.
NUMBERS IN WAR
_In which it is explained why, other things being equal, numbers
are always the deciding element in warfare, and how the enemy had a
superiority throughout the autumn and winter (written late in the
winter of 1914-1915)._
NUMBERS IN WAR
The general reader hears continually in these times that _numbers_
are the decisive element in war. That every authority, every student
and every soldier is convinced of it, he cannot fail to see from
the nature of the orders given and of the appeals made. Numbers in
material, and in men, are the one thing urged. The public critique of
the war is filled with estimates of enemy and allied numbers, numbers
of reserve, numbers of killed, numbers of prisoners. The whole of the
recruiting movement in this country is based on this same conception
of numbers.
Now the general reader may appreciate the general character of this
conception, but he must often be puzzled by the detailed application
of it.
If I am told that ten men are going to fight eight, the mere sound of
the figures suggests superiority on the part of the ten, but unless I
know how they are going to fight, I should be puzzled to say exactly
how the extra two would tell. I certainly could not say whether the
two would be enough to make a serious difference or not, and I might
come to a very wrong conclusion about the chances of the eight or
the ten. So it is worth while if one is attempting to form a sound
opinion upon the present campaign to see exactly how and why numbers
are the deciding factor in war.
In the first place it is evident that numbers only begin to tell
when other things are fairly equal. Quite a few men armed with
rifles will be a match for multitudes deprived of firearms, and the
history of war is full of smaller forces defeating larger forces
from Marathon to Ligny. But when war follows upon a long period of
peace and takes place between nations of one civilization all closely
communicating one with another, and when war has been the principal
study of those nations during the period of peace, then all elements
except those of numbers do become fairly equal. And that is exactly
the condition of the present campaigns.
The enemy have certain advantages in material, or had at the
beginning of the struggle, notably in the matter of heavy artillery,
but much more in the accurate forecast they had made of the way
in which modern fighting would turn. All sorts of their tactical
theories turned out to be just.
The Allied forces had advantages--the English in personal equipment,
medical and commissariat service; the French, Russians, and Serbians,
in the type of field gun. The French in particular in their theory of
strategy, which has proved sound.
But there was no conspicuous difference such as would make a smaller
number able to defeat a much larger one, and the historical observer
at a distance of time that will make him impartial, will certainly
regard the war as one fought between forces of nearly the same
weaponing and training. The one great differentiating point will be
numbers.
Now how is it that these numbers tell?
There are two aspects of the thing which I will call (1) The Effect
of _Absolute_ Numbers and (2) The Effect of _Proportionate_ Numbers.
(1) _Absolute Numbers_. I mean by the effect of absolute numbers the
fact that a certain minimum is required for any particular operation.
For instance, if you were holding a wall a mile long which an enemy
upon the other side desired to surmount, it is evident that you could
not hold such a wall with one man even though the enemy on the other
side consisted only in one man. The opportunities for the success
of the enemy would be too great. You could not hold it with ten men
against ten. You could hardly hold it with 100 men against 100. But
supposing that you have 3000 men to hold it with, and they are using
no weapons save their hands, then 3000 men could hold the wall not
only against 3000 others, but against any number of thousands of
others; for every man would have as his task the pushing of a ladder
off no more than a very small section of the wall with which his own
hands could deal.
There we see what is meant by the necessity of absolute numbers or a
minimum.
Now that is exactly what you have in the case of a great line of
trenches. Your defending force does not get weaker and weaker as
it diminishes in number until it reaches zero; it is able to hold
trenches of a certain length with a certain minimum of men, and when
it falls below that minimum _it cannot hold the line at all_. It has
to fall back upon a shorter line. Supposing you have, for instance,
under such conditions as those of Diagram I, a line of trenches A-B
holding the issue between two obstacles X and Y against an enemy
who attacks from the direction E. The number of men holding these
trenches, A-B, is nine units, and this number is just enough, and
only just enough, to prevent an enemy attacking from E getting
through. Nine units just prevent any part of the line of trenches,
A-B, from being left defenceless.
What does one mean by saying: “Just enough to prevent an enemy
getting through?”
[Illustration: DIAGRAM I. Suppose you have a line of trenches A-B
holding the issue between two obstacles X and Y against an enemy
who attacks from the direction E. The number of men holding those
trenches is nine units, and this number is only just enough to
prevent the attacking force getting through.]
One means that if you consider trenches in detail, a certain length
of trench needs a certain number of men to hold it, and if that
number of men is not present, it must be altogether abandoned. It
is evident that a mile of trench, for instance, could not be held
by half-a-dozen men, even if the forces opposed to them were only a
half-dozen.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM II. Every man in a trench may be regarded as
accounting for a certain angle of space in front of him, as A-B-C. If
the extreme point at which you can stop a rush is the line L-L then
you must have at least enough men--a-a-a--to cover that line with
their fire.]
You must, first, have enough men to cover the field of fire in front
of the trench with the missiles from the weapons of each, and so stop
the assault of the enemy. Every man with his rifle may be regarded
as accounting for a certain angle of space in front of him as in
the angles A B C and the other similar angles in Diagram II. These
angles must meet and cover the whole ground, in theory at least, not
further from the trench than the most advanced point to which it has
been discovered that an enemy’s rush will reach before combined fire
stops it. In practice, of course, you need very many more men, but
the theory of the thing is that if the extreme point at which you can
expect to stop a rush is the line L-L, and if the angle over which
a rifle is usefully used is the angle B-A-C, then you cannot hold
the trench at all unless you have at least enough men a-a-a just to
cover that line L-L with their fire. If you try to do it with less
men, as in Diagram III, you would only cover a portion of the front;
you would leave a gap in it between X and Y through which the trench
would be carried.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM III. If you try to hold your trench with less
men, as in this diagram, you would only cover a portion of the front;
you would leave a gap in it, between X and Y, through which the
trench would be carried.]
It is evident, I repeat, that in practice there are needed to hold
trenches a great many more men than this. You must allow for your
wastage, for the difference in ability and coolness of different men,
for the relieving of the men at regular and fairly short intervals,
and in general, it will be found that a line of trenches is not
successfully held with less than 3000 men to a mile.
The Germans are now holding in the West a line of trenches 500 miles
long with something like 4000 men to a mile; so the best work in
the war would seem to have been done by a portion of the British
contingent in front of Ypres when, apparently, a body only 1500 men
to the mile, and those I understand, dismounted cavalry, successfully
held some three miles of trenches for several days.
It is apparent, then, that when you are considering a line of
trenches you must consider them as a series of sections, to defend
each of which sections a certain minimum is required. Thus we may
consider the line A-B in Diagram IV as consisting of nine sections,
as numbered, and each section as requiring a certain minimum unit of
men, say a thousand. If any section has less than its proper minimum
the whole line fails, for that section will be carried and the cord
will be broken.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM IV. The line of trenches A-B may consist of
nine sections, to defend each of which 1000 men are required. If any
section has less than its proper minimum the whole line fails.]
[Illustration: DIAGRAMS V and VI. Suppose by killed, wounded and
prisoners the nine sections dwindle to six, the line A-B can no
longer be held. The six remaining sections would have to group
themselves as above, and in either case there would be a bad gap.
What then can the general in command of this dwindled force do?--
(_See Diagram VII overleaf._)]
Now look back at the first diagram; there you have the line A-B, and
there are nine units just able to hold it.
Suppose by killed and prisoners and wounded and disease the nine
dwindle to six, then the line A-B can no longer be held. It means
in practice that the six remaining would have to be grouped as in
Diagram V or as in Diagram VI, and in any case there would be a bad
gap, double or single, through which the enemy pressing from E would
pierce. What can the general in command of the defence do when his
force has thus dwindled?
[Illustration: --DIAGRAM VII. The defender has no choice but to fall
back on shorter lines, such as F-G, which his remaining six units can
just hold. If the six dwindle to four he must again fall back to a
yet shorter line, C-D.]
He has no choice but to _fall back upon shorter lines_. That is,
having only six units left he must retire to some such point as the
line F-G, Diagram VII, where his remaining six units will be just
sufficient to hold the line, and if the six dwindle to four he must
again fall back to a yet shorter line, such as C-D.
Note carefully that this does not concern proportionate numbers. We
are not here considering the relative strength of the defence and of
the offence; we are dealing with absolute numbers, with a minimum
below which the defensive _cannot_ hold a certain line at all, but
_must_ seek a shorter one.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM VIII. The Germans are now holding, roughly,
the line A-B, from the North Sea to the Swiss Mountains--500 miles
long in all its twists and turns. If dwindling numbers force them
to take up a shorter line they could either abandon Alsace-Lorraine
and substitute C-G for C-B, or abandon most of Belgium and Northern
France and substitute E-C for A-C. With still failing numbers they
would have to take up the still shorter line F-B. It would be no
shortening of the German line to fall back upon the Rhine, D-D-D.]
Now that is precisely the state of affairs upon the French and
Belgian frontiers at this moment. The Germans are holding a line,
which is roughly that shown in Diagram VIII, between the Swiss
mountains and the sea near Nieuport, the line A-B about 400 miles
long in all its twists and turns. If their numbers fall below a
certain level they cannot hold that line at all, and they must take
up a shorter line. How could they do this? Either by abandoning
Alsace-Lorraine and substituting C-G for the present C-B, or by
abandoning most of Belgium and all northern France, and falling back
upon the line Antwerp-Namur-The Ardennes and the Vosges, substituting
E-C for A-C. With failing numbers they would have to take up a still
shorter line from Liege southwards, just protecting German territory,
the line F-B.
As for the line of the Rhine lying immediately behind F-B, the line
D-D-D, it is a great deal longer than the shortest line they could
take up. F-B, and though heavily fortified at five important points
and with slighter fortifications elsewhere, it would need quite as
many men to defend it as a corresponding line of trenches. Thus it
would be no shortening of the German line to fall back upon the Rhine.
So much for an illustration of what is meant by absolute numbers
and of their importance in the present phase of the campaign.
(2) Now what of _Proportionate_ numbers? That is a point upon which
even closer attention must be fixed, because upon it will depend the
issue of the campaign.
The first thing we have to see clearly is that Austria and Germany
began the war with a very great preponderance in numbers of trained
and equipped men ready to take the field within the first six weeks.
They had here a great advantage over Russia and France combined, and
to see what that advantage was look at Diagram IX.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM IX. A represents the total number of men
Germany and Austria together could put into the field by about the
middle of September. B represents the French and the first British
contingent; C what the Russians could do. This shows that Germany and
Austria began the war with a great advantage over Russia, France and
Britain combined, in their numbers of trained and equipped men ready
to take the field within the first six weeks.]
Figure A represents the total number of men Germany and Austria
together could put into the field by about the middle of September. B
represents the French and the first British contingent in the West; C
what the Russians could do in the East.
This original superiority of the enemy is a point very little
appreciated because of two things. First, that men tend to think of
the thing in nations and not in numbers, and they think of Germany,
one unit, attacked by England, France, Russia, a lot of other units,
and next because there is a grave misconception as to the numbers
Russia could put into the field _early_ in the war.
Russia had a certain force quite ready, that is fully equipped,
officered, trained, gunned, and the rest of it. But she had nothing
like the numbers in proportion to her population that the enemy had.
The proportions of population were between Russia and her enemy as
seventeen to thirteen. But Germany and, to a less extent, Austria
and Hungary, had organized the whole population ultimately for war.
Russia could not do this. Her advantage, only to be obtained after
a considerable lapse of time, was the power of perpetually raising
new contingents, which, by the time they were trained and equipped
could successively enter the field. But at the opening of the war,
say by the middle of September, when she had perhaps at the most
two-and-a-half million men in Poland, the total forces of the enemy,
that is the total number of men Austria and Germany had equipped,
trained, and ready for the field since the beginning of the war, was
at least eight million.
You have the war, then, beginning with the enemy standing at quite
8, the French nominally at 4, but really nearer 3; Russia at 2½.
Let us see how time was to modify this grave disproportion and how
new contingents coupled with the effect of wastage were to affect it.
The armies which were in the field in the early part of the war bear
very various relations to the countries from which they come.
Great Britain had upon the Sambre in the first battle of the campaign
rather more than one-tenth per cent. of her total population. The
French had in the field at the outset of the war 5 per cent. of their
total population, the Russians 1 per cent., the Germans perhaps 5 per
cent., the Austrians between 3 and 4 per cent., the Serbians quite
10 per cent.--and 10 per cent. is the largest total any nation can
possibly put into the field.
Now the chances of growth for each of these contingents were very
different in each case.
That of Great Britain was indefinitely large. Given sufficient time,
sufficient money, and sufficient incentive, Great Britain might
ultimately put into the field two million or even three. She was
certain of putting into the field in the first year of the war more
than one million; she might hope to put in two. She had further
behind her as a recruiting field, the Colonies, and--a matter of
discussion--the Indian Army.
The French had nothing to fall back on save the young men who were
growing up. Therefore, they were certain not to be able to add to
their numbers for at least six months, which is just about the time
it takes to train effectively new formations.
The Germans had in reserve about as many men again as they had put
under arms at the beginning of the war. If the French could hope for
a grand total of four millions wherein somewhat over three might be
really effective and of useful age for active service in any shape,
then Germany might hope to produce a grand total of somewhat over
seven millions and a similar useful body of over five, for the German
adult males are to the French as more than five to three.
Austria could in the same way call up a reserve somewhat larger in
proportion than the Germans, but as her population was somewhat
smaller than Germany, we must write her down for something over four
millions instead of something over five, for a grand total of between
five and six millions instead of for a grand total of seven.
Serbia, like France, could not increase her contingent save by
calling up her younger men; and her army was, like that of the
French, a fixed quantity, at any rate for the first six months of
the war, and increased by one-tenth or less when the new class was
trained.
Russia in her turn presented yet another type of growth. She had by
far larger reserves of adult males than any other Power, and was
practically equal, in the material of which one can ultimately make
trained soldiers, to Germany and Austria combined; theoretically,
counting all her various races, she was the superior of Austria and
Germany combined. But it was certain that she could not equip more
than a certain number in a given time, or train them, or officer
them, or govern them.